This year has been a trip, except for our trips mostly consisted of going to our backyards or living rooms. Maybe it was just me, but having to put on jeans to go to an appointment made me feel as if I was about to walk the red carpet.
My children would have genuine shock in their voices when they would ask “why are you dressed up?!”
Something about not being permitted to leave your house for an extended amount of time makes you enjoy the mundane things you once took for granted, but it also makes you hyper aware of the things that just don’t stop, pandemic or not.
The list of reasons moms are frazzled right now could be miles long as we’ve spent more time with our families than most international laws would allow, I’m sure of it.
While quality time is great, too much of it can make your families little idiosyncrasies seem like screaming velociraptors trapped in a circular room as you try not to lose your crap.
Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. It’s fine.
Here’s a not so comprehensive, completely not peer reviewed list in no particular order of why we moms are so frazzled right now.
The dang cheese stick wrapper won’t freaking tear. Who designed these things?
My kid is losing his mind and the need to shove a snack in his face has intensified to threat con 4. You have to have nails, or some sort of magical power to tear those things open on the first try. I give up. Here’s a yogurt, kid.
Are moms the only ones that see the laundry piling up?
I mean, they have to see it right? What would happen if no one washed clothes, ever? I honestly think they would continue on with their lives by doing the smell check until the laundry fairy came back around.
Trash Jenga happens daily.
Speaking of things piling up, someone take the mother freaking trash out without being asked 75 times. Instead of someone seeing the can full and grabbing it before it overflows, it’s a game of trash Jenga until someone loses and it all comes crashing down around their feet.
Pandemic school.
For some reason school is still a thing and so are grades and expectations of some form of normalcy when you’re juggling a baby on one hip, two virtual learners and a conference call in the other hand. I’d be totally fine with the grading scale being changed to S and S+ for those overachieving families.
The people in our houses are still eating. Like, all. The. Time.
They’re home all. The. Time. And continue to eat all of the things. There is no safe place to hide snacks. No empty room not occupied by some person that you’ve birthed eating for the fifteenth time today, and it’s not even noon.
Even though they’re snacking all day long, for some reason, they still expect for you to cook dinner. What? Didn’t you eat dinner yesterday? This concept has become lost on me over the past year. Where is all the food going?
There are still people on the internet preaching about screen time limits.
Yes, we’ve heard about the research. Yes, we know it shouldn’t be more than an hour. It’s a freaking pandemic, Sharon, calm down.
Underwear tangled in the legs of partially inside out pants. This still happens.
It’s the strangest phenomenon. It’s as if they can’t be bothered to take one item of clothing off at a time, and why are their legs so sweaty that it turns their pants inside out? Is that what’s happening? Who knows.
Being touched all the time.
Everyone wants to touch you multiple times a day. It’s almost like they have some affinity for you or something, but sometimes we just need to be touched by no one. Not even the wind. Just shove us in a room with chocolate, some sort of caffeine or adult beverage and shut the door.
And lastly, toilet paper.
Where is it going and why do we keep having to buy it? I’m convinced children eat toilet paper when no one is looking, or maybe Charmin is lying about how much is actually on the roll. Either way, it seems to disappear faster than it can get put back on the roll.
These things may seem like minor inconveniences or exaggerations, and they may or may not be, but they’re real.
Moms are frazzled right now and trying our best not to have a full come apart.
No worries, we will still get up the next day and do all of the things, for all of the people while we sneak bites from our Little Debbie stash.